i really enjoyed watching black mirror!! it has very obvious flaws and i wouldn't recommend it to most people (too much s*x‼️) but it has a tone of horror that is weirdly refreshing for me, as someone that hasn't consumed a ton of horror content until recently. one of the most fascinating things to me is reading wikipedia's critic reviews (along with my peeks at other website rankings), because my opinion aligned with very few of them, so i wanted to see how my opinions compared to others'.
anyway i'll start with my thoughts on every episode, obvious spoiler warning.
starting off with the tier list this time so that people can know my opinion without getting spoilers! i watched all the episodes today but was pretty mixed on season 6's episodes, and depending on your taste i would honestly recommend skipping some of them entirely. again, note that this is my unfiltered opinion and that i don't always have good opinions, so feel free to disagree! i will have more in-depth commentary after the tier list (which will have spoilers!)
Rankings (roughly ordered within tiers):
S --- Best of the Best
Be Right Back
Shut Up and Dance
White Christmas
A --- Very Good
USS Callister
Hated in the Nation
Demon 79
Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too
Joan is Awful
Nosedive
Hang the DJ
B --- Good
San Junipero
Metalhead
White Bear
The Entire History of You
The National Anthem
Loch Henry
C --- Clear Flaws
Smithereens
Arkangel
Beyond the Sea
Men Against Fire
D --- Meh
Striking Vipers
Mazey Day
Black Museum
Playtest
Fifteen Million Merits
Crocodile
F --- Not worth watching
The Waldo Moment
Unranked ---
Bandersnatch
OK, now spoiler territory
S6E1 - Joan is Awful
i think i really liked this one! it felt similar to Nosedive for me, in that it was a very powerful and immediately understandable premise that made it very accessible. it hit all the right notes of being uniquely horrifying and vaguely plausible (yippee AI!! /s), and i'm happy to have at least one positive ending per season. i don't think it's quite good enough to be in S tier since the ending twist is... kind of pointless, and there doesn't seem to be much deep commentary (other than maybe "Big Company Bad" or "AI Shows Bad"), but it's still one of the few episodes that's a very easy recommend.
S6E2 - Loch Henry
objectively very good episode, but it's also one of the ones that just makes me feel kind of sick due to the themes. it also doesn't really feel like a black mirror episode to me, because any potential themes about technology/the nature true crime is ruined by Pia just being Weirdly Insensitive imo. depressing ending also loses more opinion points from me.
S6E3 - Beyond the Sea
this and e1 are the only ones that really feel like black mirror episodes this season imo, and this oooone has me mixed. the first murder just comes out of left field, then half the episode feels really drawn out and predictable (wooow no way he falls for the wife), then the ending happens and it's just really depressing. sorry to say i don't have a ton of objective thoughts on this one, i was just excited for the Jesse Pinkman episode and it was just really depressing (without feeling justified) so i don't like it lol. i will say the technology is never truly explored though, i honestly expected David to try to pretend to be Cliff or something, but it never happens in any interesting capacity.
S6E4 - Mazey Day
uuuughhhh i really liked this one for 80% of the runtime. the conflict between the morals of the paparazzi and having to ruin the lives of celebrities in order to make a living was great. how did they escalate it in the third act? BY TURNING THE CELEBRITY INTO A FLIPPIN WEREWOLF????? i like werewolves as much as the next guy, but it just felt like obscenely bad writing, and hinting at it beforehand doesn't really justify it!! would've advised to just skip if the first half weren't so good.
S6E5 - Demon 79
now i can't say this one didn't feel like a black mirror episode, because it wasn't!! it was a red mirror episode! wow that would've been a nice label for the last episode, wouldn't it. either way, i really liked this one!! it did what it set out to, and it did it beautifully. the characters develop well while being really really likable, and the ending twist was done in a very nicely unpredictable way. it's not the most SATISFYING ending, but since the episode has an underlying sense of humor, it makes a lot of sense.